Months later than usual, the US State Department Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs has finally announced that the exhibit for the 2018 Venice Biennial will be put together by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Chicago. Titled “Dimensions of Citizenship”, and organized by UC's Niall Atkinson, SAIC's Ann Lui and the Los Angeles-based independent critic Mimi Zeiger, the show will tackle the controversial question of what it means to be a citizen.

The pavilion will present both—newly commissioned projects created in response to the subject and already existing work, featuring entries from theorists, historians, and artists in addition to architects and designers. Commenting on the choice of the theme, Lui noted, “We thought that citizenship was a very urgent topic right now, both within national and global conversations. We noticed that architecture was often squarely in the center of these conversations, whether it was the border wall, or about more unexpected spaces like an airport lobby or monuments in the park.”

“I think questions of citizenship are charged now, but it’s important for us to realize how charged they have been over history. From redlining to gerrymandering, architecture has long had a tangible impact on individuals’ rights as citizens in the US." — added Bill Brown, the chair of the provost’s arts steering committee at the University of Chicago.

The Pavilion will be on view May 26 through November 25, 2018.

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Chemex

God is in the details. I trust these folks who have deep architecture backgrounds. Most of the time it's hacky political people and big urbanists claiming to speak on architecture or cities (like the NYT) instead of architecture experts speaking on these issues creatively and proactively (which we need more of). Gerrymandering, etc could use architecture thinking

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really? I find it rather depressing that as architects we are spending our collective time talking about social and political problems (while drawing paper castles) instead of refining our craft to the point that its urgency and relevance to contemporary modes of living and working cannot be denied. (and actually gets built so that it can impact people's lives)

Dangermouse

why not both?

archanonymous

I see the best path to affecting meaningful change as actually building projects, addressing issues of shelter and space through innovative design, detailing, and integration with technical expertise in materials, logistics, and geometry. Yes you can extend the idea of "space" to include territories, borders, and the people therein, but in doing so we lose the immediacy that build projects bring to the profession.

sounds great. I hope the curators are able to illuminate the architecture inside of these political issues -- many times politics can be too disembodied, abstract and narrative-map based (like what we see in so-called progressive critics at CityLab and the NYT). Think people react negatively to politics in architecture because few are able to strike the right balance. Good luck!

Inherent in the latency of architecture - is a shift in focus towards a larger political agenda which actually hinders the progression and growth of our profession. Instead of formulating research, it becomes more of a projection of topical issues that the rest of the world is talking about, instead of actual architecture. I see it as a sort of bloatware within a larger framework. The faster we can cut the bullshit out - the sooner we can get to work.

Aug 31, 17 10:10 am

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Chemex

God is in the details. I trust these folks who have deep architecture backgrounds. Most of the time it's hacky political people and big urbanists claiming to speak on architecture or cities (like the NYT) instead of architecture experts speaking on these issues creatively and proactively (which we need more of). Gerrymandering, etc could use architecture thinking

Seriously Donna Sink? How about Frank Ghery blending architecture and aerospace engineering to create an incredibly efficient fabrication technique? How about Morphosis and their software pipeline to create efficiencies with modeling, drawing and fabrication? How about NBBJ and radicalizing big data and computation to save energy, materials and time? How about Kengo Kuma using primitive building technology to pressure large firms who are latent in their adaptation to catch up? How about Mass Design Group, who incorporates community engagement, low cost design/build and empathy without sacrificing design integrity? Don't even get me started on BIG and his ability to absolutely dominate social norms and the architecture community - making those not even in the profession, to feel excitement about architecture and being creative.

"wolves do not lose sleep over the opinion of sheep"Anyone with intentions to not propel the profession forward, or stand in the way of progress, can leave.

Chemex

Hate to break it to you, but nobody outside the architecture profession has heard of BIG, much less anybody else on this list. If there is a revolution in architecture, it bring its innovation and proactive creativity to the rest of the world. Anyway, I don't even think BIG does that great of a job of pushing architecture forward, just using tired celebrity media paradigms for privatized modernism. Politically minded journalists do even worse when pushing social narratives that do little good because they lose sight of the embodied particulars.

I don't disagree with you on any of those, Black Orchid. Those are excellent examples with a wide range of impact. I do think architecture is big enough to handle even more, though! Someone (don't remember who) very recently said that the architecture degree is the "law degree" of the 21st Century - meaning you can take the degree and do anything with it. There's room enough in the discipline for people to do all kinds of work and tie all of it back to built communal space.

Most of this sounds like a knee jerk reaction. I remain open to the potentially great theme. Biennales have built-in interest in the times they are staged. As an architect, I don't think nuts and bolts of architecture is more important (not saying it's negligible) than the socio political context the World is occupied at the moment. I don't understand the disdain for political content or pigeon holing it. Discussion of it brings a lot of issues to the table and I welcome them. Plus, nuts and bolts issues of architecture I think you are referring to, already has huge multi national platforms in the form of trade magazines and other publications. The techtonics of buildings covered endlessly. I rather like to see the less traveled territories in architecture as they have more generative nature and immediate and needed voice. There are many biennales, maybe one of them will host what you are talking about. I think couple of binnales ago in Venice Koolhaas tried. There is a reason political issues coming forward in these times because world has never seen this much injustice in wealth distribution, racial isolation and hatred, and other dire situations like housing, climatic problems, agriculture, so on. Architecture as part of humanities can not turn blind eye to these. Some commentators cry out for criticality here but when they smell it, they feel nostalgic about window details.

Aug 31, 17 4:27 pm

Chemex

Yes, the nuts and bolts are covered endlessly (or are they? trade magazines don't reach the public, and we don't hear about infrastructure in depth until a crisis). I don't think you can blame people for reacting negatively when politics are so toxic now (and they keywords used here are political--citizenship, etc--though they claim will bring back to a tangible product.... we'll see. I'm interested. As I said, architecture offers a better vocabulary to think about politics, but the general bad trends i see in the discourse are a kind of watered down, wide and shallow perspective instead of a focused and deep view that architecture is uniquely able to offer... otherwise what's the point.

What I'm most afraid of is a large group of architects spending all their time critiquing trumps dumb wall instead of proactively offering a better vision of the future that addresses these same problems with better solutions.

"We'll see" is right. I also hope some of that shallowness is surpassed. For example, people talk differently about the wall in Tijuana than they talk about it here on this side of the border. They are able to localize and capture the economic conditions and bring the debate into more tangible areas like industry, nation state vs. borderless mega region of trans border zones and trade/labor, technology, rather than the dominating benevolency arguments common on the north side of the border. I do think it is easy to blend toxicity of politics with frustration and it is also to avoid and bury some of the 'difficult' discussions public thought they were not part of. It has been very revealing few months of discovery, to say the least.

archanonymous

"There is a reason political issues coming forward in these times because world has never seen this much injustice in wealth distribution, racial isolation and hatred" except for, you know, the entirety of human history preceding WW1. I don't buy this argument.

"Dimensions of citizenship" is actually very "architectural" if taken at literal face value. Its unfortunate it comes at what I would suggest is the end of this whole "political architecture" trend. I tried reading Architects responding to Brexit and besides economic issues they had nothing worth saying. If you want to make political commentary do so as a journalist or social theorist but don't waste everyones time and distract students of architecture with utter irrelevant garbage. Thats your opinion, great, now get back to work. If you want to amuse yourself with how to formulate click baitable architecture politics head over to Leopold Lamberts site: formula - find hot spot in world,discuss borders and walls, qoute,steal from, or paraphrase Gilles Deleuze incessantly. Hopefully dimensions of citizenship covers more on dimensions than some architect's opinion on citizenship. There are academics and thinkers who handle this. The media pretends to and gives everyone a weird anxiety to be involved in what amounts to delusional conversations. We might as well be in the medieval ages discussing religion. Last nigth of the 3 major cable news networks only CNN was covering Hurricane Harvey, MSNBC was to busy organizing panel to discuss offensive Trump stuff and Fox to busy classifying Antifa as the new KKK of the left......suprised some architect has not made diagrams on the space of Antifa or White Supremacy (entry for biennelle i suspect). "Dimensions" deals with spaces. Spaces are zoned and coded (building). Architects as "lawyers" write in that space often quite tectonically. What are those effects? "Citizenship", well i am an architect, not my expertise.